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Pitching Tips by Amazee’s Dania Gerhardt
Dania Gerhardt
Pitching your company to investors is a nerve-wrecking experience. It is a chance to put your start-up in the light it needs and to get the necessary financial incentives or expert feedback you require.
Dania Gerhardt, of online social collaboration forum Amazee, knows this very well, having participated in start- up events such as Techcrunch in London and Pitchcamp and Startup Ignite in Berlin.
TheNextWomen asked Dania for about her experiences of pitching the company she co-founded and what others can learn from it.
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How much money have you already obtained through external funding?
Funding 3,6 mio: JS-Kit by Altos through TheFunded
Nancy Cole (with Patrick de Laive of thenextweb)
JS-KIT, with General Manager Nancy Cole, a professional developers of widgets for publishers, has closed a $3.6 financing this week with Altos Ventures. According to Kris Loux: “An important resource for the company was The Funded Connect which made the initial introductions”. TheFunded Connect, founded by Adeo Rossi, is a free service to streamline fundraising, and greatly supported by among others Cathy Belk, CMO of JUMPSTART. For TheFunded is was the first deal after its launch. Read more
25 top bankers with high heels
Top Bankers
Women in banking are often unheard. However, US Bankers Magazine features in its October issue an article about the 25 most powerful women in banking and private equity.
The article states that the Fortune 500 companies with a high percentages of women on their board, have financially outperformed companies with a lower percentage of female board directors - by significant margins.
10 must have’s for a successful VC Pitch
The TED website has just published an insightful video on pitching a business before VC’s. David S. Rose explains that VC’s are interested to invest in a company, only because they are interested in YOU, the entrepreneur.
Thus, the entrepreneur must show in a maximum of 18 minutes that she has the following characteristics.
- Integrity
- Passion
- Experience
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Leadership
Mesh secures Addidi Angel funding
Kay Vasey
Online Cultural Marketplace Mesh has just secured its first round of funding from a new group of women investors. The wealth management company Addidi launched it’s women-only business angel network this week and Mesh is their first investment. Kay Vasey, Director of Mesh said “the angels have been incredibly helpful, well-organised and understanding”.
Addidi: Club for Women Business Angels
anna sofat, founder
Women-only wealth management firm Addidi of founder Anna Sofat, will launch Addidi Business Angels at the end of September 2008. A group of 100 women will invest an amount of 1 million pounds per annum in start-up ventures. Addidi provides some great statistics on their (closed) website.
- Only 5% of business angels are women
- Female business angels generally invest £20,000 into start-up businesses compared with £17,142 by male business
- Women are more likely to invest with others (21% of men ‘always invest with others’ compared with 50% of women).
event: DINK, YUP, WAHM and now BYOB
After DINK’s, YUP’s and WAHM, you can now also be a BYOB. At the Ladies who Launch Event in San Francisco this weekend, Victoria Colligan (photo), Co-Founder and President of the women’s entrepreneur website, will introduce a line of speakers who she considers BYOBs. BYOB stands for Being Your Own Boss.
Among the speakers are female internet hero and boss Gina Bianchini, founder of social networking site Ning, as well as other ‘queens of the web’ such as Patricia Handschiegel, founder/CEO of Stylediary , a website giving an overview through thousands of photos of what men and women are wearing and buying around the globe and Heather Stephenson, co-Founder of Idealbite, a website that offers ideas for ‘green’ living. Read more
deals: Women exits (via M&A, IPO or otherwise)
Recently, TheNextWomen was asked to assist in compiling a list of women who led or founded companies that went through an exit. An exit can be the sale of a company or the company going public (an Initial Public Offering or IPO).
We have a large data base of Female Internet Heroes, women who are either CxOs, investors or founders of internet companies, but now we will also make a list of women exits.
Here’s start:
- The sale of clothing company LK Bennett to Phoenix Equity in 2008. Linda Bennet, who founded the company, made a deal worth 100 million pounds.
- The $125 million dollar acquisition of online women’s magazine Daily Candy by Comcast in 2008. Its founder is Dany Levy, who is also its Chairman, and Editor-in-Chief. Catherine Levene is its COO.
Revolutionising the way you spend your money
The social networking revolution has struck in personal finance, or so it seems. Where social networking was primarily about getting in touch, or doing business, networking in personal finance, show websites such as finicity.com, greennote.com, prosper.com or more development oriented sites such as kiva.com, are about connecting over a common goal, peer-to peer lending and exchanging knowledge on finance.
Startup: Social network Sparkx
Suzan Fluitman is co-founder of social network site Sparkx. In our start-up series, she tells us about the how she start out with her quality guide.
How did you come up with the idea of your start-up?
Actually the idea to ‘ share quality’ was born out of personal needs. Andries Voskamp, my business partner, and I felt that there was a need for a network for people like us; people who are career focused but also enjoy the good things in life. We were especially looking for an environment which would be practical in our busy lives and in the busy lives of the people around us. So we decided to enable people to upload on their local & international heroes, companies (and sometimes people) and enable them to recommend these to friends, family and colleagues.
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Sponsors
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Extras
